How Consumer Evaluation Processes Differ between Goods and Services
in "THE MARKETING OF SERVICES" (1981)
Valarie A. Zeithaml
In comparison with goods, services exhibit:
1) Intangibility -services are higher in experience and credence properties (the
focus of Zeithaml's article).
note that a search quality can be evaluated prior to purchase (e.g. color of a
shirt)
note that an experience quality can be evaluated after purchase and use (e.g. car
reliability)
note that a credence quality cannot be evaluated by a non-expert even after
purchase and use (e.g. real identity of an artist)
2) Heterogeneity or non-standardized quality
-consumers differ in their ability to assist with the service (e.g. a patient).
-service environment (e.g. weather, crowdedness from other service providers
{e.g., JACK THE RIPPER TOURS in London) may be beyond the control of the
service provider
-simultaneous production and consumption of service makes it difficult to
eliminate remove poor service offerings prior to consumption
-service contact personnel are not homogeneous in personality or ability
3) Simultaneous production and consumption
-inability to store product (perishability) often results in complex pricing structures
(to coordinate supply and demand)
Because experience and credence qualities are dominant, Zeithaml proposes a
number of hypotheses about consumer evaluation processes for services:
1. Word-of-mouth is more important than advertising.
2. There is greater post-purchase evaluation and information seeking for
services.
3.There is more post-purchase than pre-purchase evaluation.
4.Consumers use price and physical facilities as cues to service quality
5.The consumer's evoked set is smaller for services.
-due to greater physical proximity of goods on a shelf.
-more difficult to obtain adequate pre-purchase information due to intangibility.
-shopping for services may be an "uncomfortable process" for the consumer.
6. Services face an additional competitor -the DIY option (more of a fact than
a hypothesis).
7. Service innovations are adopted more slowly.
-less communicable (due to intangibility)
-difficult to sample a part of a service (e.g. a medical diagnosis, a haircut)
8. Services have more perceived risk.
-intangibility
-hetrogeneity
9. Consumers attribute some of their dissatisfaction with a service to their
own abilities.
10. As a result of point nine, they may complain less about poor service.
Implications:
1) Pay attention to physical facilities and employee appearance -try to
standardize where possible, to give a service brand a consistent identity.
2) Pay particular attention to consumer expectations in service categories
which are high in DIY.
3) Use guarantees of satisfaction to reduce perceived risk. (e.g. Xerox)
A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and Its Implications for Future
Research.
A Parasuraman, Valarie A. Zeithaml, Leonard L. Berry;
Journal of Marketing (Fall) 1985.
Quality is subjective (i.e., perceived) not objective.
Previous efforts in defining Quality include:
a) "conformance to requirements" (Crosby 1979)
b) incidence of "internal failures" (reported in the factory) and "external failures"
(reported in the field) (Garvin 1983).
Definition adopted in the present paper:
"Service quality is a measure of how well the service level delivered matches
customer expectations. Delivering quality service means conforming to
customer expectations on a consistent basis" (Lewis and Booms 1983).
The Conceptual Model of Service Quality.
Method
(1) In depth interviews with executives from Retail, Banking, Credit Card, Product
Repair and Brokerage.
(2) Focus group interviews with customers of above companies. Customer
groups selected were:
(i) Screened by age and gender
(ii) Screened to ensure that participants were current or former users of the
product.
Focus groups led to the "Gaps Model" of Service Quality.
Gap 1. Consumer Expectations of Service Quality versus Management
Perceptions of Consumer Expectations.
Security features of credit cards generated substantial discussion in the focus
group discussions but did not seem to be critical to executives.
--reduce this gap via increased market research or improved hierarchical
communications.
Gap 2. Management Perceptions of Consumer Expectations of Service
Quality versus Service Quality Specifications of Management.
--resource constraints (e.g. EE vacations during peak months) and or
management indifference ("too busy to stay informed") may affect service quality.
Gap 3. Service Quality Specifications versus the Service that is Delivered.
--due to heterogeneous EE's, consumers inability to articulate symptoms or
requests, repetitive service tasks (airport screening or Prisoner of War guards).
Gap 4. Service Delivery versus External Communications.
--media advertising may affect consumer expectations of performance leading to
the problem of the company promising more than it can deliver (Dot.com logistics
fiasco in December (1999).
--also neglecting to inform consumers of company actions that are designed to
improve quality may impact perceptions of quality.
Gap 5. Expected Service versus Perceived Service Gap.
--Gap 5 is hypothesized to be a function of the other four gaps.
NOTE THAT THE SERVQUAL SCALE IS DESIGNED TO MEASURE GAP 5
"SERVQUAL: A Multiple Item Measure For Measuring Consumer
Perceptions of Service Quality",
A. Parasuraman, Valerie A. Zeithaml, Leonard L. Berry (1988)
Journal of Retailing
Methodology
1) Focus group work of 1985 led to 10 dimensions of SERVQUAL.
Approximately 10 items per dimension (97 overall) were used to generate the
scale. Both perceptions and expectations were measured on a 1= strongly
disagree, 7= strongly agree scale.
2) 200 adults (age 25 or older) were recruited in a shopping mall by a large
marketing research firm. To qualify a subject had to have used one of the
following categories (appliance repair, long distance telephone, securities,
brokerage, credit cards or banking) in the last 3 months. A quota of 40 users
was established for each service.
3) Scale Purification: a Q score (P-E) was calculated for each item. Item to
total correlations on a dimension were employed to determine whether or
not to retain the item. Items with very low item-total correlations were removed.
4) A factor analysis of remaining items was employed to further reduce the
number of items. Items with increased loadings on more than one factor
(after oblique rotation) were removed. This process led to 22 items and
only 5 factors:
a.Reliability--ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately.
b.Tangibles--appearance of physical facilities, equipment and personnel.
c.Responsiveness--willingness to help customers and to provide prompt service
d.Assurance--knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to inspire trust and
confidence.
e.Empathy--caring individualized attention the form provides its customers.
.
Parasuraman, A. Valerie A. Zeithaml and Leonard L. Berry (1994),
"Alternative Scales for Measuring Service Quality: A Compartive
Assessment Based on Psychometric and Diagnostic Criteria," Journal of
Retailing, 70 (3), 193-194.
In 1994, the authors of SERVQUAL attempted to improve the SERVQUAL scale
by dividing expectations into two components:
(1) Desired --the level of service performance you desire
(2) Minimum--the minimum service level you consider adequate.
Each of these ( along with actual service performance) would be assessed for all
SERVQUAL items on a 9-point scale. If performance falls between Desired and
Minimum it is said to be within the Zone of Tolerance.
The managerial implication is that if one dimension of SERVQUAL received a
perceived service score of 6 compared and another dimension was rated as a
4, a manager may sill wish to focus on the first dimension rather than the second
if the first score is below the zone of tolerance and the second score within the
zone of tolerance.
In 1996 (see "The Behavioral Consequences of Service Quality" in the
Journal of Marketing) the authors of the SERVQUAL scale examined the link
between SERVQUAL and measures of behavioral intentions.
A large survey (30069 responses) was employed to test:
H1 The Service -Quality / Behavioral Intentions relationship is positive but the
slope within the Zone of Tolerance is different to the slope above and below it.
H2 Favourable Behavioral Intentions will most likely occur for (a) faultless
service, next likely will be (b) service that has a mistake that is rectified, least
likely will be (c) mistake that is not rectified.
Hypotheses were generally supported.
Assume loyalty on an Y axis and service quality on the x axis
For H1, aggregating across service industries: below the minimum level of
service increases in perceived quality bring forth only small increases in loyalty,
after the minimum level of service is reached, returns to quality are much more
pronounced (i.e., the curve is flat at first and then becomes steeper). Note that
there was no change in the slope after the desired levels of service were
exceeded (although there were so few data points in this region that the
insignificance of the slope change could have been due to the sample size).
H2 was also supported
Kenneth Teas (see Journal of Marketing 1997) has been a strong critic of
SERVQUAL.
One of his main problems is that any variation in SERVQUAL's "desired level of
service" is probably attributable to measurement error. After all, why would
someone not give a maximum score on desired level of service quality?
Teas looked at 432 individuals who did not report the highest score for desired
level of service:
151 explained they didn't think the top score was feasible
125 explained they didn't think the attribute was important
A second (more dubious) criticism is that once you know which attributes of
SERVQUAL are most important, why bother to measure the Zone of Tolerance?
In defence of SERVQUAL the costs of a one unit improvement in perceptions
may not be the same. Also (pure speculation!) there may be instances in which
the importance of a variable may increase when the Zone of Tolerance is
entered. For example, employee knowledge may not be important to me until
knowledge enters the Zone of tolerance.
Brady and Cronin (2001), "Some New Thoughts on Conceptualizing
Perceived Service Quality: A Hierarchical Approach," Journal of Marketing,
65 (July) 34-49.
The authors note that although SERVQUAL (the American approach) is the most
famous measure of service quality there are other models:
For example, the Nordic approach of Gronroos identifies two dimensions of
service quality: Functional quality and Technical quality.
Functional Quality (assessment of interactions that take place during service
delivery).
Tec hnical Quality (assessment of the outcome of the service).
Brady and Cronin attempt to combine the Nordic and American approaches in a
Hierarchical approach.
The Hierarchical approach maintains that Service Quality has three dimensions:
(1) Interaction Quality
(2) Physical Environment Quality
(3) Outcome Quality
In turn each dimension has a number of sub-dimensions;
Interaction Quality product comprises of attitude, behavior and expertise
Physical Environment Quality comprises of ambient conditions, design, waiting
time and social factors
Outcome Quality consists of waiting time, tangibles and valence (although in the
empirical test of the model social factors also contributed to Outcome Quality).
Each of the sub-dimensions is measured with a reliability, responsiveness and
empathy question.
(You may now find it helpful to look at the survey at the end of the Cronin and
Brady paper)
An empirical test involving 1149 respondents who evaluated amusement
parks, fast-food, photography developing and dry cleaning supported the
proposed model.
Comments:
(1) Decision to put overall measure of Service Quality at the end may result in
lower scores on that measure.
(2) Benchmarks would be helpful (Will the respondent compare the service
provider with other brands that cost about the same or with some brands that are
much more expensive?)
Richard Oliver, "Whence Consumer Loyalty," Journal of Marketing
(Oct.1999).
Consumer loyalty and satisfaction are linked inextricably; but the relation is
asymmetric: although loyal consumers are most typically satisfied, satisfaction
does not universally translate into loyalty.
Reichheld (1996) notes that 65-85% of satisfied consumers will defect
Author concludes that satisfaction is a necessary step in loyalty formation but
becomes less significant as loyalty begins to set through other mechanisms.
These mechanisms, omitted from consideration in current models, include the
roles of personal determinism ("fortitude") and social bonding at the institutional
and personal level. When these additional factors are brought into account,
ultimate loyalty emerges as a combination of perceived product superiority,
personal fortitude, social bonding
An unsettling conclusion from is that loyalty cannot be achieved or pursued as a
reasonable goal by many providers because of the nature of the product
category or consumer disinterest. For some firms, satisfaction is the only feasible
goal for which they should strive; thus, satisfaction remains a worthy pursuit
among the consumer marketing community.
FOUR LOYALTY STRATEGIES
Community/Social Support
Individual fortitude
low
high
low
Product superiority
Village envelopment
high
Determined isolation
Immersed selfidentity
Individual fortitude = degree to which the consumer fights off competitive
overtures
Community support = degree to which reference group also buy the brand
support the purchase